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GOLD. 



"The Power Behind the Throne." 



BY 



JOHN WICKLIFFB JACKSON. 






Copyright, l.S9(>. 

THK EDITOR PlTBIJSHrN(; CO., 

KKANKMN, OHIO. 



GOLD. 

'■''Exegi monumentum aere peremiusy 



All hail, bright Gold ! thou thing of lowly birth, 
At once the sovereign and the slave of earth ! 
Doomed to enchantment by a distant view. 
Behold, at last, the Muse yields homage due — 
Forgets the slights her wretched sons bemoan, 
Attunes her lyre, and kneels at Mammon's throne. 
Protean power! who shall thy history tell? 
What age, what arm first broke thy prison cell? 
Before the flood, who saw thy splendors shine. 
And wondering bore thee from the murky mine? 
Wast thou unknown, a thing obscure and vain. 
When rang the anvils of stout Tubal-cain? 
Or didst thou deck the young World's wicked pride 
What time it perished in the whelming tide? 
Ah, sure, when Babel reared its impious head, 
Thou still didst slumber in thy native bed. 
Else hadst thou shown the men of Shinar's plain 
Far richer treasures than a heaven to gain; 
Mocked their rude plan, born of the thotight sublime 
That fallen man unto his God might climb. 
And taught that toil, which would the skies explore, 
'Tis nobler far to delve for thy bright ore ! 

Howe'er it be, not ours to speculate, 

But thy known deeds, great Gold, to celebrate. 

Lo ! where thy youth, untarnished by events, 



Sped by within the patriarchs' peaceful tents, 

Or swathed in goatskins journeyed to and fro 

From well to well, where richest pastures grow : 

Save when the fat^ling of the shepherd's fold 

Or sturdy oxen werp exchanged for gold, — 

Save when rude Death some ha>=ty summons brought 

And dark Machpelahs were for burial bought, — 

Such was thy life : though bartered yet secure, 

Changeful in sameness, brilliantly obscure: 

Still gathering strength that thou might'st rule alone, 

Monarch of Kings, — "the Power behind the Throne," 

Hence, light we touch on these thy pastoral days, 

A theme ill-suited to a sovereign's praise, 

Nor pause to tell how oft at marriage feast 

Thy chains, which won the bride, played too the priest: 

How thy bright bonds were by Rebecca worn, 

Whom Tsaac wooed ere Cupid yet was born; 

How Egypt's maids in barbarous splendor shone 

When thou didst gird them with a glittering zone. 

Or, if perchance their pride owned humbler sway. 

How near their feet th}- gaudy fetters lay; 

From Nile to Syria in the marts of trade, 

How merchants doled thee and how changers weighed. 

When thou wast but the price of oil or balm — 

Thy weight, thy emblem and thy name — a lamb! 



O subtle (lold! by searching fires refined, 
Didst thou not catch some attribute of mind? — 
Some soaring thought, unquenchable in might. 
Whose vision bursting from Egyptian night. 
Looked down in soorn on human dolts and clods. 
When mousing eats were changed to mewing gods?- 
Some moving motive in thy molten brain 
By demons fixed, that they with thee might reign? 
Foredoomed the ruler of man's baser part. 
Too cheap the conquest of his selfish heart, 
Since short the step and near the glittering goal 
Where thou mightst sway the scepter of his soul ! 



Methinks I see — thine hour of triumph nigh — 

The hard, cold glittei* of thy serpent eye! 

Methinks 1 see — when Sinai's summit bowed 

Beneath the thunders of the chariot-cloud — 

When pealed the trumpet and the pen of flame 

Engraved the law in God's eternal name, — 

Deep in the shadows of yon camp below, 

Thj forges redden and thy metal glow ! 

The chosen people of the Promised Land 

Here idly grouped or there communing stand. 

While, half forgetful of the weary wav. 

Fond mothers smile where joyous children play ; 

And thus they watch the tedious day expire. 

Till from the cloud appears the pillar of fire. 

When swells aloud their murmured discontent, 

While toward the mount their sullen brows are bent: 

"Make us a god!" Hark how their shouts arise; — 

Before the priest the gathered treasure lies 

Of Gold Immortal, tit alone to shine, 

The sacred essence of a thing divine ! 

The perjured Levite tremblingly obeys, 

And moulds thine image for unholy praise: 

With song and wine the h'^sts elect advance 

And join enraptured in the reverent dance. 

While thou dost mock them with thy grinning god — 

The Calf-usurper of the Prophet's rod ! 



What didst thou reck, — down from thy glory thruet,- 

Of flames devouring and oblivious dust, 

Since at thy fall thy hecatombs were slain 

In grand oKlation to thy short-lived reign? 

What didst thou reck, — uplifted and ordained 

To crown the rites thy sacrilege profaned, — 

Of hammer's clang, of seething furnace-heat, 

Of hands that nailed thee to the "mercy-seat?" 

Nor "crown" nor "ark" chains thee in slavery dim, 

Or stays the flight of "golden cherubim !" 

For wast thou not to Israel's after years 



The fruitful source of strife and woe and tears, 

When all the wisdom of her wisest son 

To thee bowed down, dishonored and undone, 

And proved all "proverbs" and all precepts naught, 

Beside the Gold from distant Ophir brought? 

The Temple pillaged and its riches gone, 

I see thee rise once more in Babylon, — 

The shame that crowned the bondman's bitter cup, 

'•The Golden Image that the king set up." 

Majestic Belus, could we read thy fate. 

What "scenes and changes" might the tale relate ! 

Did Cyrus bear thee to his Persian throne. 

Where spoils of Croesus mingled with thine own? 

Or didst thou live until degenerate trade 

Of all thy partp Ionian coin had made? 

Or were thy fragments at an earlier time 

From Asia wafted to the Grecian clime. 

Where thou didst glitter in thine oblong bars. 

While Homer sang of fallen Troja's wars? 

Vile, yellow slave, he knew thee not. 

Whose name shall live when thy foul dross shall rot: 

Far simpler alms the sightless minstrel served. 

While Gold was yet for baser hands reserved. 

The haughty victor of Olympic games. 

Apollo's priests and Athens' jeweled dames, — 

These were thy votaries, till "eternal Rome" 

Threw wide her gates and called earth's evils home ! 

When, as they came, a fierce chaotic brood. 

Thy splendors rolled along war s crimson flood. 

lo triumphe! let plebeian shout. 

Let proud patrician hail yon gorgeous rout ! 

lo triumphe! with the roar of drums. 

From blazing Carthage the great Scipio comes! 

Their gilded horns high toss the sacred drove, 

Decked for the altars of Idean Jove ; 

A hundred steeds in glittering harness toil 

To drag the burden of the golden spoil ; 



A hundred cymbals shake the echoing ground, 

In whose wild clang the captives' moans are drowned. 

But hark! he comes — the demi-god of war, 

His purple robe sweeps o'er an ivory car, 

His eager ear drinks in the mighty song 

Whose thrilling bursts ten thousand tongues prolong: 

lo triumphe! let no voice be dumb, 

The laureled victors to the temple come ! 

Peal with your thunders to the welkin dome. 

All hail, ye eagles of Imperial Rome ! 

But lo ! entwined through all your precious spoils. 

With shining scales, a poisonous reptile coils 

He comes as silent as the march of fate. 

The crawling conqueror of a crumbling State. 

Let Joyous pounds be turned to cries of fear; 

A mightier yet than Scipio is here ! — 

When drunken Neros shout in palace halls, 

While Wine to Lust, and Lust on Murder calls, 

His tongue shall scrawl on Rome's beleaguered walls : 

'■'• For freedom bartered and for manhood sold, 

Thy days are numbered and thine hours are told. 

lo triumphe, for the conqueror — Goldf'' 

L'Envoi. 

O Gold ! bright Gold ! thus far we ring thy chimes 

To swaying quickstep of iambic rhymes, 

And see reflected in thy mirror's face 

The varied miseries of each age and race. 

Say, then, shall history itself- repeat 

In this fair land, the poor man's last retreat? 

Not while there lives — where rears the Giant West 

The cloud capped eyrie of his eagle-nest, — 

The glorious freedom of enfranchised thought, 

Unchained, unbowed, unconquered and unbought ! 

Long as thy prairies from a bounteous breast 
Upheave thy treasures, O unf athomed West ! 
Long as thy golden sheaves wave o'er the plain, 
Sunbright as billows that dance on the main ; 



Long as thy mountains bear back the blue dome,— 
Peace be thy heritage — freedom thy home ! 
Long as thy mines, like a manna in drouth. 
Rival in whiteness the fields of the South, 
And thy silvery guidon, unsullied by wars, 
Heralds new States in the dawn of new stars, — 
Still shall thy record of progress unrolled. 
Gleam with a glory far grander than Gold ! 
Lift, then, the emblems of virtue and truth, 
Laurels of manhood and armor of youth, — 
Charge ! where the standards of Lucre yet lower, 
Shouting the banner-cry, — "Knowledge is Power." 
Down with usurpers of gold-gotten might. — - 
Long live the champions of God and the right! 







GOLD. 



'The Power Behind the Throne." 



BY 



JOHN WICKLIFFE JACKSON. 



Copyright, 1890. 
THE EDITOR PUBLISHING CO.. 

FBANKLIN, OHIO. 




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